Poetry, Art, Medicine & Society

Celebrity

Marilyn Monroe rules the world, at least
The part visible in a photograph, standing
Above the troops she’s about to bless
With a song in her porous sequin dress, her arms
Durably outstretched. She hasn’t aged a day
In fifty years. The men too appear impossibly
Young, mooning boys clotted around a woman
Who just might show them something they’ve never seen.
Picture the millions who’ve looked at this picture
As a relic, an idol’s sacred likeness.
Now imagine the few who bring her close, make out
In the crowd, a brother, a son, that it’s he
Who quickens hearts, dampens palms, doesn’t belong
With the others, but to those hopelessly apart
From the object of their affection, though holding on
Tight with their eyes. Incongruous, he has nothing
To do with movies, just right place, right time,
Korea during the war, at the front
Of countless gawkers when the bombshell walks out.There’s your famous father, someone’s mother jokes
And everyone smiles, knowing how hard it’s been.
He’s in his prime and at his peak before
Coming home to the farm in Glen Mills
In a bag or minus a leg or unscathed
As far as anyone can see. Go ahead, ad-lib,
It’s all fantasy, how he stepped off a plane
And got recognized instantly, besieged by people
Who made up with the intensity of their obsession
What they lacked in numbers, open mouthed,
Daring to think, it’s him, it’s really him.

—David Moolten

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David Moolten

About me: I'm the author of three books of poetry, Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005), and Primitive Mood, which won the 2009 T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press, and was published in 2009.

I'm also a physician specializing in transfusion medicine, and I live, write and practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Audio Files

'Cuda(Originally appeared in The Kenyon Review)

Ode For Orville And Wilbur Wright(Originally appeared in The Southern Review)

Ode For Orville And Wilbur Wright

I don't yearn for their steep excursion
Into fame and fortune, for it had
The usual price, and Orville died bitter
And Wilbur died young. I envy them
Only the slender and empty distance they left
Between them and a seaside's grassy bluffs
In mild December, the frail ingenuity
Of dreams, a lifetime's hopes made of string and cloth
And a little puttering motor that might have run
A lawn mower if the brothers had put their minds
To one first. For dumb exhilaration, nothing --
Not an F-16 thundering from its base
In Turkey nor my redeye circling O'Hare --
Comes close to what they must have felt
For less than a shaking, clattering minute
Clearing all attachment to the world
Of dickering and petty concerns: for some
No other heaven. So I take note of them
As they took notes from the lonely buzzard, obsessed
To the point of love with the ghostly air
And the small fluttering things that wandered
Through it. Eccentric but never flighty,
Bookish but not above nicking their hands
In bicycle shops and basements, they lived
With their sister and tinkered with the future.
Propelled by ambition, the mandate
It invents, they still heeded the laws
Of nature, trimmed needless weight, saw everything
Even themselves as burden, determined
Not to crash and burn. Sheer will launched them,
Good will, because those first forty yards
Skimming shale and reeds were for everyone.
Face down between the struts, staring at the ground
As it blurred past, they failed like anyone
To grasp the implications. But legs flailing
They hung on, buoyed by never and almost
And then just barely. I could do worse
Than their brief rapture, their common sense
Of purpose. Or I could, if only
For a moment, exalt them, go along
With the jury-rigged myth, the quaint
Contrivance that lets them rise above it all.

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Howard Trachtman, MD Department of Pediatrics NYU School of Medicine Throughout history, reading books has often been viewed with deep suspicion by figures in authority. The Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publically burned thousands of objects including books on February 7, 1497 in Florence, Italy, an infamous episode that […]

I am so in awe of your imagination, David! Such a wonderful story told so well. I particularly like the line, “unscathed as far as anyone can tell”. We all know someone who came home from war that way….

I admire how this poem unflinchingly regards the most raw and basic drives of humanity — death (war) and sex (Marilyn) and cultural rituals (enactments) to appease both death and sex. The contrast between the female celebrity goddess and the famous-by-association male soldier is compelling. Moreover, although the poem doesn’t say it outright, it alludes to the fact that Marilyn is herself a casualty of her own wars. In the wars between man and woman, or between man and man, no one is unscathed. I’m in awe of how complex your poems are, David.

Your insights are astute as always. While I was leery of having MM become the focus of negative attention, since she was as much a victim of our culture as the soldiers, I wanted to nevertheless use her as the embodiment of the false though beautiful ideal for which so many wars are fought, and for which so many are willing to die.

another photograph. with some wonderful images built around it. I was taken with …Young, mooning boys clotted around a woman… among all the others.
You do some interesting things here with perspective, point of view. The line Rachel mentions jolts the reader into being part of the action at the same time it brings back the frame.

Thank you. Yes, I was trying to use the narrator’s voice and the imperative to keep the reader reminded of the separation between him/her and that referred to in the picture, since that separation is real, and more than just time.

Thanks for you insightful take on this. I agree with you about the prompt; for me using all the words is too much of a challenge, overpowers anything I could imagine. One or two words on the other hand can get things started.

The prompt is barely recognizeable, and seeing as you read my poem you know how problematic I made it be. Your poem, on the other hand, shows dignity, grace and creating from what shows up without judging or the wringing of hands.

Thank you so much for your kind remarks, though I think you did fine with your poem. I find that using all or most of the prompt words is something I simply am not capable of, so I pick one or two. It’s not fair to compare.

I like mooning boys clotted around a woman with quickening hearts and damp palms..Your poem has a desperation about it…the futility of war
coupled with the futility of males all fired up over a bombshell holding on tight with their eyes. This poem is a call for menopausal women to lead the world! Glad you’re joining the cause David.

The iconic sources which inspire some of your poems grow richer in my memory because you do what you do so brilliantly, David. In this instance, the words of the poem are so true. Families would save the picture of the icon because “Uncle Joe” was right beside the icon in the picture. And because people do this, it gives validity to the icon as well as the memory of “Uncle Joe”. It’s all romanticized together. The phrases in your poem are romantic too,”holding on tight with their eyes” and “opened mouth”. The farm community of “Glen Mills” put Glenn Miller in my head, associating back to the time and place of the poem. Yes, he was gone then, but his music was still really popular through out the 50’s. Brilliant.

Thank you for your very detailed comments. I wonder if I was subconsciously thinking of Glen Miller too (I’m familiar with his story, and like his music) when I picked Glen Mills as the town, a community not far from here in Philadelphia, with its share of contributions over the years to our country’s wars.

My friend, I love your poetry. I was wondering if you would be interested in exchanging links with my poetry blog: http://mellifluoustones.blogspot.com/.
If you are so, please contact me. (email can be found on the blog.)